Still Waters 2 point 9: For Absent Friends
by RedPBass
Summary: Max returns to the US to bid goodbye to an old friend with Negi in tow. Set the year before Still Waters 3. 12/6/10: Fixed the formatting.
1. Chapter 1

**Still Waters: For Absent Friends**

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_Many Times I've Loved, Many Times Been Bitten_

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Max leaned over Negi's seat to look out through the window at the ground far below, where the sea had finally given way to land.

"I'm finally back…didn't think I would ever see it again."

Negi shook himself out of his doze and looked around. "Max-san? Did you say something?"

Max shook his head and sat back down. "Nothing."

'It's been four years, now…I wonder what will happen when we leave the airport?' Max leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. America…

* * *

The plane landed without incident and the passengers disembarked on American soil. Max, for his part, couldn't help but feel a tiny thrill at being home again, even if the place he had called home for so many years was actually about a thousand miles to the east. He had spent a lot of time in this city, in his younger days.

"Max-san? Is something wrong?" Negi asked worriedly.

"Nothing. Where is Takamichi?"

"He is at the baggage claim, with Shizuna-sensei," Negi replied, looking around wide eyed. He had never been to San Diego before.

Max couldn't help but smile…it appeared this was the kid's first time in America. He would have to be sure to show Negi around. They had a week, after all. But…Negi wasn't exactly a kid, anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination. All the time spent in Eva's resort coupled with everything he had been through…no, Negi was most definitely _not_ a kid anymore.

"Ooh, look, look! What's that? I want to see. Max-san, can I go look?"

Well, he might still be a kid, at least a little.

"Sure. Meet up with us at the baggage claim in a few minutes."

"Ok, Max-san," Negi replied absently as he ran off after whatever he had seen.

Max stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered through the familiar airport. The last time he had been here, he had been preparing to undertake a mission to Japan to locate a certain person of interest. But what he had found… He grinned crookedly and soon located Takahata and Shizuna, and the three of them waited in near-silence for Negi to arrive.

"How does it feel to be home again?" Takahata asked after a moment from where he leaned on a support pillar.

Max glanced at him, then redirected his blank gaze to the ceiling from his side of the column. "It's nice. I guess I didn't realize how much I missed it."

Takahata nodded and lit a cigarette, but quickly put it out when Shizuna gave him the evil eye. "They say you can never return home, but it's a lie."

Max nodded absently while Shizuna rolled her eyes and maintained her silence.

"I'm here, Max-san, Takamichi, Shizuna-sensei," Negi announced as he jogged up to the small group, bearing a bag of expensive airport souvenirs. "Shall we go?"

Everyone gathered their luggage, such as it was, and headed for the exit.

* * *

As the group headed outside, a familiar face greeted them. Max couldn't help but grin at the sight of one of his old friends. He strolled toward the man with his hands in his pockets. "Hey Byron. You got yourself rich yet?"

Byron grinned lazily and pulled down his sunglasses a bit. "No. Economy's in shambles. How's a decent man supposed to get ahead like this? It's gotta be some kind of conspiracy." His grin widened. "How you doin, Max?"

"Better than I was, worse than I will be. You?"

"Same." Byron eyed the other three teachers and motioned for them to follow as he led the way to the car. "So, Max Linell, a teacher. Never thought I'd see the day." He pulled out a rumpled cigarette and lit it, but held it instead of smoking it. "How's Jenny?"

"Fine. She wanted to come with me, but…"

"You'd better be treating her right, Max," Byron said, loosening his already loose tie further. It seemed he still couldn't stand the things…some things never changed.

"I'm doing what I can," Max replied. They continued in silence for a time while Negi, Takahata and Shizuna maintained a respectful distance while the two old friends caught up. "So…what's the situation?"

"It's pretty rough. You don't know just what you caused over here, Max." Byron absently dropped the burned-out-but-not-yet-smoked cigarette and stepped on it.

"How bad is it?"

"We're currently run by a committee of the section chiefs until they can appoint someone to replace the last guy. There has been a movement to nominate Wilder again, but he turned 'em down. Says he's too old." Byron tch'd in disbelief. "Yeah, I'll believe that when he's been dead two years, not a day before."

Max barked a laugh and nodded. Old Man Wilder was tough as nails. He still had a good forty years left in him, short of accident or murder.

"You really shook the place up. The research division's head and half its fighting capability gone in one disastrous mission, followed by a defection to the old man at Mahora by two of our best agents...it's been rough."

"That bad, huh?"

"That bad. You know, they've got me training rookies now. Me! Training rookies who only have eyes for the four legends of the research division!"

Max stopped. "Four legends?" He didn't like the sound of that.

Byron continued on for a few steps before he stopped. "You, Jenny, Guy, and Arvel. Can you believe that? What about me? I'm Byron the freakin Water Mage, the guy who used to regularly beat the lot of you in spar sessions, sometimes all four at once!. Where's my respect?" Byron asked, overselling badly.

"Yeah, yeah. Poor Byron. Be good and maybe I'll buy you some cotton candy," Max replied sarcastically as Byron grinned.

"Heh, same old Max."

"…yeah."

"So who're they?" Byron asked, jerking his head back at the three following them.

"The cool one's Takahata, the woman's Shizuna, and the kid's Negi."

"Negi Springfield?" Byron asked. Max nodded, and Byron whistled. "So it really is his son, huh? Looks just him, judging by the pictures."

"Yeah."

"Is he as strong as they say?"

Max nodded. "They're good people, Byron. I don't want any trouble for them."

"…there won't be. You've got the whole American Division on their toes, Max. But you're lucky you weren't greeted by a sniper."

"Is it that bad?"

"It was seriously discussed by the committee; I know that much. Don't worry, they dropped it. They decided that the risks were too great."

"Risks?"

"If you were to die under suspicious conditions here, what's to stop Jenny and that little girl over in Japan from joining together and wiping us out?"

Max grinned wryly. "Not much."

"Damn straight."

They paused by a large, white SUV and Byron produced a key. "Guess what? You guys get the whole package; a chauffer, a five star hotel, room service."

"What's the catch?" Max asked as he opened the door and got in. He glanced back to see Negi, Takahata, and Shizuna approaching.

"They want you out of here. The sooner the better. They told me to do my best, so…" Byron assumed a stiff and rather constipated expression and spoke in a deep, commanding voice. "I think it would be for the best if you turned around, got right back on that plane, and flew back to Japan tonight."

"No."

Byron grinned. "Well, at least I tried. You still planning on staying the whole week, right? Nothing's changed?" Max shook his head, and Byron fell silent as the other three teachers got into the car. "Now come on, let's get you guys to the hotel," Byron said as he turned the key in the ignition.

Conversation soon died and everyone fell into a comfortable silence as jet lag started catching up. After a long drive through crowded city streets, they found their hotel and unloaded their luggage from the car, and Byron helped them find their rooms and then left them to their own devices.

Max excused himself from the group and went to his room, leaving Takahata, Shizuna and Negi alone in the lobby.

"So…what do we do now?" Negi asked, trying to look at everything at once.

Takahata grinned slightly…Negi was acting like a student on a class trip. "We are planning to visit the zoo, later…I understand it is a good one," he said, then grinned as Negi's face lit up.

* * *

Max lay back on top of the bed in his hotel room and gazed into space, letting himself go for the first time in a long time. It was nice to be back, true; but…he couldn't help but miss Akira and Jennifer. It felt like a big part of what made him, him was missing, without those two nearby; the others too, to a lesser extent. Yuuna, Makie, and sometimes Ako, though she had been spending more time with her bandmates as time went on. They had all become almost as comfortable around each other as Max and Jennifer were with Akira. A lot of things had happened; some bad, more good, all coming together to mold the whole lot of them into something he could only describe by the concept of nakama; brothers (and sisters) in arms, war buddies…that sort of thing. It was…nice. His old friends in America had died or gone insane or drifted away one by one; with Marlin and Nil in the ermine camp in the magic world and Arvel in a coma he would likely never come out of, the last remaining members of the old group were Max and Byron. It was hard, but…there it was.

Max let out a deep breath and let himself drift off.

* * *

"Come on, Max!" Rikki called, smiling toothily at him from her perch on top of the shipping container. She held out her hand, so he took it and almost pulled her down by accident. The two of them were only thirteen, but he was already showing signs of becoming the 6'6" monster he would be later in life. "Oof, you're heavy," Rikki complained, ignoring the howling dogs and security guards only a hundred yards away and closing.

"Excuse me for livin," Max retorted as he scrambled up. To his surprise, Rikki didn't let go of his hand, but instead led the way along the top of the container and onto the next, and the next and the next and the next; she only let go when they were forced to jump across an empty space above the maze of containers in the shipping yard. Even then, she waited for him and helped pull him up when his jump went short. Her eyes shining with amusement, it was almost as if she was having the time of her life, and he couldn't help but grin at her in response.

They arrived at the edge of the stacked containers and were faced with a six foot gap between the stack and the razor wire fence.

Rikki grinned wickedly at him, took a few steps back for a running start, and jumped, clearing the razor wire easily. Max eyed the gap warily, then took off his jacket and wrapped the record book from the shipping office with it, then tossed it over the fence to her.

"Max…?"

"I really don't want to do this," he complained as he backed up to the edge of the container.

"Come on, Max! You have to hurry," Rikki said, her earlier exuberance gone. She actually seemed worried for some reason. Well, Max didn't like that look on her face, but there wasn't anything to worry over; she had the record book, she could take it to Father Brian and he would handle things from there. There was nothing for her to worry about.

"Go on, I'll hold them off," Max said, actually expecting her to go.

Rikki growled something insulting, dropped the package, and started climbing the fence.

"Wait! Don't do that, Rikki! What about the wire on the top? You'll get cut!"

"I don't care, you idiot! If you're not coming with me, I'm going to come and get you!"

After a bit of arguing, it was decided that Max would jump. 'Weird girl…she'd get all scarred up if she climbed the fence, then what? Nobody would want to marry a poor scarred up girl,' he complained mentally. He took a running start and—

* * *

*knock knock knock*

Max opened his eyes and sat up. That was right...he was in a hotel in San Diego, not a shipyard run by a conman.

"Max-san? We're going to the zoo, do you want to come with us?"

Max rubbed his eyes, which had become suspiciously moist, and stood up. "Ok. I'll be out in a minute," he replied as he headed to the bathroom to wash his face. He still had the scars where his leg had clipped the razor wire and become tangled. Whoever had attached it to the main fence hadn't done a good job; at least fifty feet of it had come loose when Max fell on it all those years ago.

He couldn't help but grin at the memory of sheer ridiculousness of it; even Rikki had burst into laughter once she saw he was all right. He turned on the faucet in the bathroom.

* * *

"Wow, look at the elephants, they're so big!" Negi gushed as he ran to the fence and pointed excitedly.

Max couldn't help but grin; Negi was acting like a twelve year old. It was especially amusing that he looked to be in his late teens now, a result of extensive training in Eva's time-manipulating resort.

"We're in the US now, Negi. You don't have to speak in Japanese anymore," Max said as he glanced at the elephants. Yep, they were elephants, all right. Now that he thought about it, Rikki had been fond of elephants too, but her favorite animals were always the meerkats. He was a Tiger person, himself. He wondered briefly where Takahata and Shizuna had gone, but shrugged it off. The two of them were probably spending quality time in a storage room or something.

"Oh, yes…I'll try to remember," Negi said in Japanese as he watched the elephants. "Oh look! It says here that this is only a temporary exhibit while they do some work on the Wild Animal Park. We were very lucky to be here to see them like this, weren't we?"

Max nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he looked around at the families and other tourists; he grinned wryly. He would likely never have a family like that; it just didn't seem to be in the cards for him. Speaking of cards… He his hand touched the card in his pocket and he relaxed a little; the cool, almost plastic texture of the card was reassuring, in a way. Almost as reassuring as it was sad. Negi would experience the same thing, given time; he had too many ministra not to.

He pushed those thoughts from his head and followed Negi to the next exhibit.

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_**Author's Note 12/6/10:**I've just gone over this story and re-added the dividers and stuff to make it easier to read after FFN's mass deletion of symbols-used-as-dividers a while back. There isn't anything new...sorry about that.  
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_**Author's Note: **Well, here's a side story featuring Max returning to the US, escorted by Negi, Takahata, and Shizuna. Also, we finally get to meet Byron the Water Mage, mentioned waaay back in Chapter 8 of Still Waters 1, when Max spoke with Marlin at the festival. Not to mention Rikki, who has been brought up with some regularity throughout both stories. This story will likely only be four chapters, so don't expect another twenty chapter novel, here. Also, in case you were wondering, this takes place in the early summer of 2007, the year before Still Waters 3._


	2. Chapter 2

**Still Waters 2.9: For Absent Friends**

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_Many Times I've Gazed Along The Open Road_

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Max looked across the street at Negi and the short, angry man facing him. Leave the kid outside for five minutes…no, that wasn't fair. It simply wasn't the sort of place Negi was familiar with. Max had done much the same when first arriving in Mahora, after all. In any case, he had to do something to avoid a fight, so he sighed and strolled across the street.

"But I don't understand what you're saying," Negi tried to explain. The other man wasn't having any of it though, and rattled off a quick insult in Spanish before spitting on Negi's shoe. Negi raised an eyebrow and looked from his shoe to the angry man.

Max clapped Negi on the shoulder. "Come on, let it go. Here's your drink," he said, forcing a bottle into Negi's hand.

"Ok…" Negi said, looking at the bottle while Max started talking with the angry man a short distance away. He opened the bottle and took a sip, but was interrupted by a burst of raucous laughter. He looked up and saw Max and the other man grinning at him, and then Max said something that brought another burst of laughter and a thumbs up.

"What was that about?" Negi asked, giving Max a far-too-neutral look as the other man left.

"Nothing much," Max said. "I told him you were just exhausted from dealing with so many women all the time."

"So many women?"

"He said something to the effect of 'congratulations' and 'take it easy'."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it."

Negi had some ideas about the underlying meaning of what Max had said, but decided not to explore that route, and instead took another sip of his drink. "So, where is it you wanted to go?" he asked.

Max didn't answer; instead he fell into a deeper silence than usual as he led Negi deeper into the bad part of town. Luckily, it was a bright, clear day, and both of them were fully capable of defending themselves against any mundane threat that may appear. It didn't stop Max's instincts from screaming danger constantly, however, and rightfully so.

Some streets were a bit different, some buildings were gone or remodeled since the last time he had been here, but overall, everything was still the same. Max stepped over a particularly deep crack in the sidewalk he recalled clearly, and led Negi down one final street, finally coming to a stop before an eight story building, boarded up and condemned.

"So it's still here," he said wonderingly.

"Max-san?"

He didn't answer, but instead forced the door open and entered the deserted building. Negi shrugged and followed him, shutting the door behind them.

* * *

Cobwebs, dust, refuse such as empty beer bottles and used prophylactics, ancient crackpipes…all littered the bottom floor of the old apartment building.

"Rikki?" Max whispered loudly. He had followed her here, once, when she had been hurt by the death of one of their friends a few years back. But this time it was worse; the man the whole group saw as a father, the priest they all knew as Father Brian, had been killed. Murdered in cold blood by a man from the magic world, because he 'got in the way'. Well, the murderer was dead now; Marlin, the oldest of the group, had seen to that.

"Rikki?" He paused in the process of stepping over a pile of soiled clothing, one foot in the air, as something moved somewhere upstairs. He waited a long ten count before continuing. The sound didn't repeat, so he climbed up the stairs. It appeared that someone had been here recently; the thick dust on the staircase provided a single set of footprints, recently made and much smaller than his own. It seemed the bums and homeless people kept to the bottom floor.

He followed the footprints to the second floor, then to the third, the fourth, the fifth…they finally turned away from the stairwell on the sixth floor, and he followed. Down the hallway, into and out of several rooms, until finally disappearing behind a closed door at the end of the hall. He reached out to open the door, hesitated as he recognized the sound of a girl sobbing on the other side, and pushed open the door.

* * *

"This is a place where I spent a lot of time," Max said, stepping into the ancient, dust-filled room while Negi looked around at everything.

"It's much bigger than what I am used to," Negi said as he stepped inside. He had lived in Japan since the age of ten, after all.

Max grunted noncommittally and stood in the center of the floor, looking around as if he was searching for something. "There," he said suddenly as he crossed the room and knelt down beside another door. He pulled out a pocket knife and used it to pry up a creaking floorboard, then reached down into the darkness beneath, finally coming up with an ancient cigar box.

"What is that?" Negi asked from his place by the window.

"Keepsakes. Let's get out of here," Max answered as he turned to go.

"I thought I would find you here when I saw you wandering around out there at the Texaco," a new voice said from the doorway.

Max frowned as he eyed the intruder. "Hello, Jingle."

The man in the doorway frowned at that. He seemed to be a man who had been through hard times; pudgy around the middle, wrinkles from a tense life lined a tired face framed by graying hair. "Don't call me that," he said, frowning deeply.

"Max-san, please introduce me to your friend," Negi said.

"He was never my friend," the man said as he took another step into the room, looking around.

"His name is Casey, but everyone called him Jingle because of the chains he always wore on his jacket," Max explained to Negi.

"That belongs to me," Jingle said, eyeing the cigar box. "And you don't have a right to be here."

Max passed the cigar box to Negi and stepped up to the other man, who was a good eight inches shorter.

Negi's curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the cigar box while the other two argued. Inside…there was a stack of pictures in a sealed plastic baggy along with a lot of apparently random items; a popsicle stick, a cheap tin charm, a rusting pocketknife, a handful of old pennies, a lock without a key, and several keys without locks among other things. The sort of things anyone might gather in their younger days. Negi had had something similar himself, back home in Wales. He rifled through the items, paused over a suspicious looking gold colored…thing that seemed designed to go on a necklace, and then moved on to the plastic baggy with the pictures inside. He had already gone this far, so…

"I don't care _what_ you think you two had, you got my sister killed and you have no right, _no right_, to _anything_ that belonged to her!" Jingle shouted.

Negi shuffled through the pictures slowly. Most were of a young man who seemed vaguely familiar; he had gone through several pictures before he realized the young man was Max. Most of them seemed to have been taken around the city; he recognized various landmarks in the background here and there, though the city had changed a lot in the time since the pictures were taken. He paused on one group shot that showed a group of fourteen kids with ages ranging from ten to twenty. He recognized several of the faces; there was Max, of course, standing stiffly while some young dark haired girl wrapped herself around his arm; he spotted Marlin, Arvel, Nil, Guy, and Byron in the crowd as well, each clearly recognizable once he knew what to look for. But, the thing that drew his eye most was a small group standing just behind them. That had to be Dean Konoe, standing there talking with an aging man dressed like a priest, and another man mostly hidden by Max; even at such a young age, the man had already been tall. But…that staff…! He recognized that shape; he should, after all. It was propped up in the corner back in his hotel room.

The man standing behind Max in the picture was, without a doubt, Negi's father.

Negi's concentration was broken when Max knocked the stack of pictures back into the cigar box and snapped it shut. "Come on Negi, we're going," he said irritably while Jingle railed away at both of them in the background.

"Ah, sorry for the trouble," Negi said, offering a short bow before Max pulled him through the open doorway.

* * *

"What happened?" Negi asked as Max led him hurriedly down the stairs.

"That guy is the older brother of one of my old friends. Things happened, and he blames me for it. Come on, let's get out of here before he does something stupid."

Negi followed along, mind clouded by thoughts of that picture with his dad in the background. Max had still been a kid when the picture was taken so he might not even remember; not to mention the fact that according to Negi's research, his father had never spent much time in America. He had been there several times, yes, but only in order to get somewhere else. But…

"You hear me, Byron? Get that car here now, there's trouble," Max snapped quietly into a cell phone. He flipped it shut and shoved it into his pocket, holding out an arm to hold Negi back. The ground floor was full of young gang members, milling around and settling in here and there. Well, they _had_ been milling around until Negi and Max came down the stairs and found themselves facing them.

"Listen to what I'm saying, that stuff is mine, it doesn't belong to you!" Jingle shouted as he came down the stairs. He trailed off as the young gang members looked at him.

"Shit." Jingle muttered.

"You!" One of the gang members said, pointing at Jingle. "We told you to clear out or die. I guess you wanna die, huh?"

"You can still jump out of windows, right?" Max asked as chaos broke out and the gang members started pouring up the stairs.

"I'm not so old I can't kick some ass now and then," Jingle replied gruffly as the trio ran into a side room and barricaded the door.

"Good. Now come on," Max said as he crossed the room and kicked the window frame out and glanced down at the ground. "It's clear."

"Can he do this sort of thing?" Jingle asked, eyeing Negi, his previous antagonistic attitude completely gone.

"No problem," Max said.

Jingle nodded, climbed onto the broken window sill, and looked down. "See you outside. And don't forget my stuff!" he said, and then jumped.

"It's not yours," Max shouted after him. "Come on, Negi, you're next," he said as the punks started pounding the door.

"Ok," Negi said, looking outside to get his bearings. He passed the cigar box to Max and climbed out the window, hanging by his fingers for a moment before he let go to drop to the ground below.

Max wasted no time in joining the other two on the ground. The trio made their way to a nearby street just as a gunshot rang out.

"They found us," Jingle muttered under his breath.

"Hey! I see them! This way!" someone shouted behind them.

Max cursed under his breath and threw up a quick wall of fire in the street as they ran, drawing startled cries from the gang members and anyone else who happened to be on the street. Tires squealed somewhere ahead and Negi looked forward to see none other than Byron, driving the large white SUV he had been showing them around in.

He drove past, turned around, and drove up beside them, slowing to a crawl, but not a complete stop as Max threw the door open. Negi went in first, then Max, who held the door open and held out a hand for Jingle. Jingle looked at Max as if he might bite him, then cursed and got in as well. With everyone secured, Byron got them away quickly, if not safely.

* * *

"Let me out here," Jingle said after they had ridden for a few miles. Max grunted noncommittally.

"You sure about that, Jingle? It looked like those guys were after you," Byron said.

"Yeah. Now let me out, damn you. If I have to sit here and look at his ugly face any longer-" he jerked his thumb in Max's general direction "-I'm gonna be sick. Let me out."

"Whatever you say," Byron said as he shrugged and pulled over. "Don't be a stranger, Jingle. I'll be in town for another week or so. Let's get together and talk about old times."

Jingle got out of the car and stood beside it in silence for a moment, holding the door open. "I'll think about it," he said finally, then shut the door and started walking.

"Is he always like that?" Negi asked, looking back at the man through the window as Byron got back on the road.

"Yeah, that's good old Jingle, for you. Ungrateful bastard," Byron said fondly.

Negi glanced over at Max, but the other man was looking down at the cigar box he carried, wearing an expression that indicated he probably wouldn't notice any attempt to get his attention short of a punch to the wind. The rest of the trip back to the hotel was spent in silence, and Max excused himself and retreated to his room as soon as they arrived.

Takamichi and Shizuna-sensei were both out; and, with Max-san out of the question, Negi turned to Byron for conversation.

"So, who exactly is this 'Jingle'-san?"

Byron slouched comfortably into a chair. "He's Rikki's older brother."

"Rikki?"

Byron raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you don't know about Rikki…then again, it's Max, so it's no wonder he never told you. You see, back when we were all a bunch of young punks…"

* * *

Max carefully placed the cigar box on the small table next to the bed and dropped into a chair. Jingle…now _that_ guy had brought back memories, both good and bad. He had been the oldest of the group, back then, older than Marlin by a good seven years. A part of them, and yet…not. He had been too old, too far removed. Almost a different generation, or so they had thought at the time.

Jingle…Rikki's overprotective big brother. He had been incensed that time Max carried her home.

He pulled his chair over to the bed and dumped the contents of the cigar box out on the bedcover. A charm he vaguely remembered giving her, a pocket knife, wheat pennies…she had always collected wheat pennies, for some reason. He finally stopped wasting time and picked up the stack of pictures. With one last steadying breath, he started thumbing through them. Pictures of the old group, most of whom were dead or gone, now. His car, a Datsun p.o.s. he had been so proud of at the time…a picture of Max standing with his back to the camera, looking at the sunset across the bay. He separated them into piles, deciding what would go back to Jingle, what should go to Byron, or Nil and Marlin when they were finished their confinement in the ermine camp. He paused a long, long time on a group picture of the whole lot of them at a tourist spot. He remembered that…it was the day Father Brian had met with some people who were considered to be important in the world of magic. It was with real surprise that he recognized old Konoemon speaking with Father Brian. There was someone else, but the person was obscured behind the younger version of Max.

Old memories came back in a rush; that had been only days before Father Brian's murder. Someone had come through, chasing after one of the two who had arranged the meeting, and just…killed him. Marlin had taken revenge for them of course, but…after that had come a long time of chaos. They had eventually been scouted out by the American Division, and that had been the only thing that saved them. He set it aside and continued scanning through the pictures.

Nil yelling at Arvel…Marlin posing in an attempt to look cool…Byron checking out some woman who had just walked by…

A pactio card. A dead one, to be precise, hidden among the pictures.

He held it in his hand, feeling the unique, almost-plastic texture of the card. Oh, how Guy had been _enraged_ when he found out about this! Max couldn't help but grin a little. He had always enjoyed baiting Guy, though the other man had always given as good as he got. That was after Father Brian, after they had been taken in by the American Division though, and before Guy changed.

* * *

Rikki closed the door of the small conference room and locked it, then turned around to face Max with an odd look on her face.

Max, for his part, took a wary step back. "Rikki…?"

"You can kiss me if you want," she said suddenly, eyes darting away from his face and then back, only to dart away again as her face started to go red.

"Wha-I-uh…I mean, uh…" Max tried to reply. Apparently he had quite the expression on his face, because Rikki burst into laughter. When she got herself under control again, however, she closed the space between the two of them and snaked her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. Already, he was so much taller…he hesitantly put his arms around her, not knowing what else to do or even where to put his hands. He settled for a 'safe' around-the-shoulders hug.

"You idiot, kiss me."

"W-what about Guy? He likes you, you kn—mmf!"

Rikki cut off his protests with her mouth.

It was the most amazing feeling Max had ever felt up to that point in his life. A deep seated heat built somewhere inside him as the kiss went on, deepening when she opened her mouth for some reason. Max didn't notice, though; the heat inside was too great. He felt as if he might explode or burn up. And then they were on the floor, the two of them first fumbling with buttons and zippers, and then tearing at them as the heat, the energy intensified, and the kiss deepened further still, as if to the very core of both, he thought he heard a distant roaring sound, and—

—Rikki bit his tongue, hard enough to draw blood. They looked at each other doe-eyed for a moment, then went to opposite sides of the room in an instant, both blushing madly.

"Th-that was—"

"Don't say it!" Rikki said in a wavering voice, cutting him off as her fingers wandered up to caress her lips, where they had been against his mere seconds before.

Max couldn't help but stare at her, his mind racing as he tried to work out what had just happened. It took a moment before he realized she was staring at something in the middle of the floor. He stared at that, too, until she knelt down and picked up the two objects. She smiled helplessly at him and held them up so he could see.

"P…pactio…"

* * *

"Hey, Max!" Byron yelled as he pounded on the door. "Come on, we're ready to go. You wanted to go somewhere upstate, right? Come on!"

Max realized he had drifted off and scooped everything into the cigar box again. He stood, looking at the dead pactio card in his hand for a moment, then shoved it into his pocket beside the other one and left the cigar box where it was. It wasn't as if there was anything of material value in there, anyway. He shoved a few items in a bag and left the room; he had something more important to do right now.

* * *

_**Author's Notes**: I forgot to mention it earlier, but I own nothing but the OCs._


	3. Chapter 3

**Still Waters 2.9: For Absent Friends **

**

* * *

**

_Many Times I've Lied, Many Times I've Listened_

_

* * *

_

Max knelt down by the gravestone and opened the bottle of cheap wine. "I know it's not black label, but it'll do," he said aloud as he poured. "Sorry, Beccan."

"She understands," Byron said from where he stood behind Max. "She'd drink anything, even something homemade run through a radiator." He raised a cigarette to his lips, hesitated, lowered it again.

"Yeah," Max said, standing up. He wiped the dirt from the knees of his pants and replaced the cork in the empty wine bottle. He looked at the weathered gravestone for a moment in silence. Beccan had been like a big sister to them all, and she had been the first to die. No matter how much you meant to someone, a stray bullet would take you out of the game just the same. He slipped the wine bottle into the plastic grocery bag he carried and followed Byron to the next grave, a good hundred yards away in the sprawling cemetery.

Broderick, Amos, Dalton…they were buried here as well. Three had died before Father Brian, one immediately after. They had had a good, long stretch after that; it was three more years before anyone else died. But what a death…

* * *

"Guy! Take the right side, I'll circle around and take 'em from the other."

Guy simply nodded and went into action. Whatever you might say about Guy when he was off duty, he was serious about his work. And this…these people had made it personal when they kidnapped those people, and Rikki among them.

They had attacked in squads of two to three people, using the old American Army nomenclature. Max and Guy were Able Squad, the one designated to perform the actual rescue. They were accompanied by five other squads, each with its own job to do. These Children of Gilgamesh, as they called themselves, were quite adamant about what they did. Something about 'The Daughter', and some divine purpose, or something like that. The long and short of it was, they were a fanatic cult who had apparently found their next figurehead in the guise of a young Japanese girl on vacation in Seattle. Rikki had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got scooped up along with the half dozen or so Japanese tourists.

It made him mad.

Actually, to say that Rikki's kidnapping made him mad would be a severe understatement. He was enraged. He had to constantly fight the impulse to take these cult members and rip them apart with his bare hands; he had beaten one of them until the man was left a bloody, hardly-breathing wreck barely two minutes before, and had barely been able to stop himself from killing him. Even Guy, known for his brutality on missions, had given him an odd look at that.

Max turned his attention back to the enemy. Guy was keeping them busy, so Max slipped up behind the three facing Guy and took them out as quickly as possible. They secured the guards and proceeded to the next area, repeating the process, adjusted as necessary as the situation dictated. Until things got out of control.

* * *

Max emptied the last bottle on Amos' grave and stood up.

"Too bad we can't go see the others," Byron said after a moment of silence.

"Yeah," Max said. He wasn't in the mood for conversation today…there was simply too much on his mind.

"Yeah, a thousand miles or more does put a damper on this sort of thing," Byron continued after he dropped his burned-but-not-smoked cigarette and crushed it.

Max muttered a noncommittal grunt as he hefted the bag full of empty bottles. Seventeen of them had stood together in the beginning; now there were two. It was a hard life, and a hard world.

* * *

The long drive back was spent in a thoughtful silence as absent friends and old times long forgotten were recalled.

Max just looked out through the window, not really seeing anything, until his mind started to drift.

* * *

Max entered the room through the hole in the wall, fear wrenching his stomach into a tight knot at what he might find. _That was the room that housed the hostages…!_

Blood. Blood, sprayed everywhere. That was the first thing he saw. It coated the walls and ceiling, and he was quite sure it coated the floor as well, but his eyes kept wandering and he couldn't make himself look at anything directly. His line of sight skittered across a crumpled form and his mouth went dry all at once.

Another form, lying motionless with arms and legs outflung in an almost comic manner, if one ignored the large pieces of debris embedded in the body. Another, crumpled against the far wall, head and neck at an impossible angle. Another, ripped in half by some great force. Two more, clutching each other even in death. Guy's outburst of wind magic had done well enough to get rid of the enemies, but…

Another huddled form lying half buried by debris, the top of a distinctively pretty head of hair poking out.

He took a hesitant step into the room, feeling as if this somehow just wasn't real, the sounds of the still-ongoing battle fading out behind him as all his senses turned to focus on that one person.

"…" He opened his mouth to say something, her name perhaps, but his mouth held no moisture and his tongue felt stupid and slow. "R…Rikki…?"

She moved. _She moved!_

There was a horrible gasping sound, but he didn't wait to see what it was. He started removing the bigger chunks of debris, calling out to her as he went. "Rikki! Rikki!" It was as if he were trying to cast a spell, almost, pouring all his hope into that single word.

"Rikki! Rikk—"

His voice cut off and he knelt there dumbly, looking at her with a growing sense of horror.

Blood, lots of blood. And…and guts. She had her arms around a young girl, perhaps six or seven, who was staring at her with wide, pained and vacant eyes. A distant, coldly logical part of his mind said that this was likely the girl the Children of Gilgamesh had been searching for, but he shunted that aside. He had eyes only for Rikki. Rikki, who laughed at his bad jokes and, just a few years back, had made a pactio with him. Rikki, who was dying here with her guts on the floor in front of him. He dropped to the floor and started wiping the blood from her face. Her dazed eyes wandered for a moment before settling on him, then suddenly sharpened. And…she was trying to smile. She couldn't speak, but she was mouthing words at him and he couldn't…she…

Tears started falling, and she tried to raise her hand up to wipe them away. She didn't have enough strength for that, however, so Max took her hand in his own, and her smile widened. She mouthed words again, and he thought he made out something like _Don't cry_. She was trying to comfort him…!

Then she was wracked with spasms and more…stuff came out, and he noticed for the first time that the young Japanese girl was alive and hurt too, impaled by a big piece of metal. His eyes went back to Rikki, and then other people were swarming into the room. He heard someone cursing violently as he continued holding Rikki's hand. Hands pulled the pale young Japanese girl away and Max was left with Rikki, and she was smiling at him even now, at a time like this. Smiling even as her eyes grew distant and glazed and her hand went cold.

And, standing above them, looking down at the two of them with dispassionate eyes, was Guy Sculler, the one who had caused this disaster, the man who had turned a simple rescue mission into a massacre.

* * *

"Max!"

Max jerked and sat up straight in his seat, looking around. He was in an SUV, in a parking garage, somewhere.

"We're back at the hotel. Come on, let's raid the hotel bar. The Division's paying for it, so we might as well take advantage, right?" Byron asked.

"Hotel bar, huh?" Max asked. He felt…old. Old and stiff. He had found himself feeling that way more often, these past few years. He could really use a trip to the hotel bar after that dream.

"Yeah. Come on, let's get inside. I hear they're pretty well stocked."

"Ok," Max replied as he unbuckled his seat belt and sat for a moment. He had been sweating, it seemed. Byron passed him a handful of napkins from the center console storage compartment. Max accepted them with a quick nod and Byron looked away as Max swept his sweaty hair out of his eyes and dried his face. After a moment, he tossed the used and crumpled napkins into the back seat and got out of the SUV. "Thanks."

Byron actually seemed embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he looked at another car. "Don't worry about it. Come on, let's go."

A stray thought tugged at the back of his mind as he walked alongside the other man. "Byron…what happened to the kid?"

Byron raised an eyebrow at that. "Kid? What kid? Are you going senile on me, Max?"

Max shook his head. "That Japanese kid that that Gilgamesh cult kidnapped. What happened to her?"

Byron stopped walking and watched Max for a moment. "What's this about, all of a sudden? Look, Max, that was a long time ago—"

"Don't give me that, Byron," Max said testily. He rubbed his temples; he felt a migraine coming on. "She…she died trying to protect her. I want to know what happened," Max said, his mouth dry. It was never pleasant, talking about those times. Or even thinking about them, really. That whole year, hell, that whole era in his life, five years or more, was little more than a painful haze in his memory…it had been a very bad time.

Byron just stood there, looked around the parking garage at random, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket, and finally fished out a rumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He fumbled with the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out, almost dropped it, and finally put it in his mouth. Then he started fumbling with his lighter.

"Are you going to smoke the damn thing or what?" Max demanded irritably.

Byron sighed heavily. "Fine," he spat, unfortunately spitting out his cigarette as well, which rolled into a gutter. He watched it float away with a sad expression. "Fine. The girl's alive. Rikki bonded with her to keep her alive, and one of the others took over after she died." Byron's expression twisted into a disgusted frown; disgust for being the one to tell this to Max, or disgust at fellow agents using restricted methods? Max was quite sure it was the former; Byron had cared little for the often-times stringent rules of mage society. But bonding…it was illegal for a reason, and if one were smart, they wouldn't even mention it around other mages. It basically meant sharing one's life force with another person, which could have all sorts of positive effects, such as keeping an otherwise fatally-wounded person alive. Well…alive until they bled out or otherwise used up all of the other person's energy, anyway; both would die in that case. It also had many negative uses; one could force a bonding on another person, for instance. It could be used to influence the bonded person in various ways, or even take over their body if one's will was strong enough. The various mage councils had come together on this issue long ago, and bonding had been outlawed for well over a millennium in both worlds. Not that that stopped some people. But where had Rikki learned such a thing? And whoever had taken over after her, too…where had they learned it?

The two of them walked in silence until they reached the elevator while Max pondered the ramifications of the information. Rikki had bonded her…! With the injuries Rikki had taken there had been little hope of survival, and yet…she had given away what little life she had left to try and save a little girl she hadn't ever seen before. He felt his eyes start to moisten and forced himself to get his emotions back under control. There had been too much of that in the past, and Rikki…she wouldn't want him to cry over her. And…thinking about it…it was just like something she would do. He felt the corner of his mouth quirk upward at the thought, and his mood lightened.

They stood there side by side by the elevator in an awkward silence for a few seconds until Max opened his mouth to speak; Byron beat him to the punch, however.

"She's in Japan. She lost her whole family in that attack, so they set her up with some surrogate family over there and sent her off to a boarding school. Last I heard, she was doing fine."

"That's good," Max said. Well, the whole 'still alive' thing, not the 'lost her whole family' thing. "How did they handle it?"

"Memory sealing, mostly. Implanting false memories to make sure she accepted her new family. You know, that sort of thing," Byron said irritably. He started tapping his foot. "How long does this damn elevator take?"

Max leaned against the wall and eyed the other man. Something was going on here…it took a lot to make Byron lose his cool like this; he watched Byron pace around in increasing irritation. Something that would make the older man act this way…something that would cut through the outer shell he always tried to show the world… Abruptly Max realized what was wrong. "Huh," he grunted.

Byron whirled on him. "What? What are you looking at?"

Max couldn't help but grin. Byron had a soft heart, however he acted. "It was you, wasn't it?"

Byron cursed under his breath and dug out his cigarette pack, then cursed aloud when he found it to be empty.

"All right. Fine. It was me, damn it. I took over the bond after Rikki died. Yeah. What of it? And wipe that stupid grin off your face!"

The elevator door finally opened and the two of them stepped inside. Max couldn't help but grin in amusement. It was an ugly grin, but Byron knew exactly what it meant. You didn't work with a guy half your life and not know his expressions, after all.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Byron shouted.

* * *

Late that night, long after the others had gone to sleep in their rooms, Max sat on the edge of his bed, looking at the two dead and faded pactio cards; one for him, one for Rikki. His own simply showed an awkward teenage boy in a long coat, long wicked-looking bowie knife in one hand, what looked to be an old cowboy-style Navy Colt in the other, topped off with a devil-may-care grin. Rikki's card…she looked like some kind of exotic Arabian princess, whirling, with long hair billowing and her gold-handled scimitar held out, ready to take off someone's head. It was an enchanting image, to be sure. If only they had known all the ins and outs of using the cards...! Things might have been different if they had. Instead, the two of them had kept it a secret from the higher ups, and their friends had done the same. Well...what was done was done, and there was no changing the past, no matter how much you might want to.

He sighed and tossed the dead cards to the nightstand, then lay back and dropped his arm over his eyes.

"Damn."

It wasn't as if he didn't have others. In fact, he had a handful, what with all the excitement that seems to circle around Mahora. Between insane mages and demons hellbent on revenge, last-ditch pactios among the more unusual members of the student body and civilian population weren't exactly uncommon. He knew Negi himself was the current leader with over four dozen active pactios at present, but…it wasn't as if he were jealous of the kid or anything. Well…maybe a little. Negi hadn't yet felt that awful sense of loss that comes with the death of a pactio partner, that sensation of a chunk of your soul being violently ripped out. Most people were able to go on, but some never recovered; instead joining their lost partners in the afterlife. He had seen it several times, and every single time, it had taken something out of the survivor, some spark that used to be there had been snuffed out, never to return. A plate of food never tasted as good as it used to, a drink was never as refreshing as it once was…it was hard. And sometimes, in the dark hours of the night, when one was alone with themselves...sometimes, the reflection of light on a blade or the look of bullets stacked in a magazine held a bizarre attraction. It was a dangerous thing, that, and one that had caused the loss of several friends and coworkers over the years. She shook off those thoughts and glanced at the clock. It was a little after eleven; if he wanted to get anything done tomorrow, he would have to get some sleep.

He turned off the light and lay there in the darkness, listening to the sounds of a hotel at night. It was a nice place, well insulated, so there was little he could hear except the occasional creak of the building settling for the night, or a heavy person walking by in the hallway. He sighed and closed his eyes. Tomorrow…tomorrow was the last day. Tomorrow, he would make his decision.


	4. Chapter 4

**Still Waters 2.9: For Absent Friends **

**

* * *

**

_Many Times I've Wondered How Much There Is To Know_

_

* * *

_

It was a long drive up the coast to The Point, as Rikki had always called it. It was a solid upthrust of rock, part of some ancient geologic action that had raised a cliff above the sea long ago. It wasn't a particularly imaginative name, but…it was the one that stuck. It was in the central part of the state, near King City in the way that San Diego was near Los Angeles. In any case, it was a place on a small deserted stretch of land that was known only to few outside the members of the group who had followed Father Brian in the eighties and nineties. Unfortunately, it was a few hundred miles north of San Diego, so it was a long trip and the group had to leave early in the morning.

* * *

"Some will win, some will loo~ose. Some were born to SIIIING THE BLU~UES!"

Max did his best to ignore the horrible caterwauling noise coming from the driver's seat. Byron had always liked to sing, so Max was sort of used to it. The others, however…Max glanced back at the other passengers and barely managed to hold back a wicked grin. Takahata was pure cool as always; very little could shake the man enough to make him respond with anxiety or irritation. Currently, he seemed slightly amused.

Negi, on the other hand, was squirming around and shooting searching glances at Takahata and Shizuna; it appeared he didn't know how to respond to such a situation.

"Dooon't stop, belieeee~eevin," Byron continued.

Negi finally let out a sigh and stopped squirming, apparently resigning himself to his fate. Max turned his attention to Shizuna.

Now Shizuna, _there_ was a person unafraid to show her emotions! The woman sat there, arms and legs crossed in a severe manner, an irritated frown marring her pretty face. She noticed Max looking at her and sent him a warning glare meant for Byron. Apparently, she was not a fan of off key singing; odd, considering her birth in the land of karaoke.

Max turned off the radio.

"Dooo~on't stop, belieeeee—hey! I was listening to that," Byron complained.

Max sighed and leaned back in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position. They had been riding for well over an hour and a half in California traffic, after all…everyone was getting irritable. And that was _before_ Byron had started singing along to the radio.

Byron looked over his passengers in the rear view mirror and grumbled something under his breath. "Yeah yeah, I see how it is. Don't think nobody knows about the way you all sing in the shower or when you're driving alone. Come on, everybody does it. And besides, it's Journey! A classic band playing their best song! Come on!" No one seemed to agree, so Byron rolled his eyes, gave up, and fell silent.

"Freakin critics…"

* * *

When Byron pulled over at a gas station a few minutes later, everyone piled out and made their purchases while he filled the SUV's tank.

"Max-san…" Negi said while Max was pondering over which drink to buy. It had been quite a while since he had had such a selection of _normal_ drinks, after all.

"What?"

"Byron-san…is he always like that?" Negi asked, referring to Byron's general…weirdness.

"Most of it's an act, I think," Max said absentmindedly as he picked up a Pepsi. He paused for a moment, then grabbed a Mountain Dew for Byron. "He likes to get a reaction out of people. If his first attempt doesn't get the result he's looking for, he'll turn it up another notch and try again. In fact…" Max looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'll bet you twenty bucks he's got a stack of CDs hidden out there with the most obnoxious music he could find. What do you say?"

Negi didn't answer; instead, his eyes had gone wide and empty, and his face had gone pale. "It…it can get worse…? Oh no…I…I think I want to lie down…"

* * *

When everyone got back in the car, Negi waited with baited breath to see what new horrors awaited him in the car ride from hell. He saw the CD case Byron was handling and couldn't help but feel a horrible premonition…it couldn't be! No! He had to do something! Byron's finger was approaching the 'play' button, but he couldn't think of a polite way to tell the man to take his horrible, Godforsaken CD out, break it in half, and jam it down a garbage disposal along with a handful of gravel without sounding rude.

And so his fate was sealed.

"Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you~!"

"Damn it Byron! I'm going to rip this %$^&ing CD player out and shove it down your $%^&ing throat if you don't cut it out!" Max bellowed.

"Tch. Come on, it's Celine Dion. How can you not like Celine Dion?"

"Y-yes, it's true! I want to listen!" Shizuna said excitedly from the back seat.

* * *

They stopped several hours later in the early afternoon at a small diner Max remembered from his many trips up and down the coast, during his years of doing jobs for Father Brian with the others in the group.

Max pushed the door open, stepped inside, and took a quick look around before moving out of the way to let the others enter.

The aging man behind the counter tossed the towel he was holding up onto his shoulder and leaned on the bar. "What'll it be?"

Everyone gave their orders and took their seats; Max naturally slouched into his old seat at the far end of the bar and turned the spinning chair slightly so he had a view of the door. Negi sat awkwardly beside him, looking around the otherwise deserted building, while Takahata and Shizuna sat down at one of the small tables and Byron excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Negi watched as the man expertly prepared their food, but soon got bored of that and let his eyes drift over the bulletin boards filled with old, tacked-up pictures. He scanned through them one by one; from old black and white pictures that must have been fifty years old through to those that might have been taken yesterday. He was somehow not surprised to spot a few familiar faces in several of them. Max with the dark haired girl from the group picture, and Guy, among others.

The man preparing their orders sat back for a moment and saw the young teacher eyeing the photos. "Some of 'em are from way back in '53 when my dad's older brother first opened this place. That's fifty-four years of history you're looking at, there. He gave the place to my dad in '76 when he retired, and it was given to me oh…ten years ago. It's a tradition; the pictures, I mean. Anyone the owner recognized got their picture up on the wall, along with whoever came in with 'em. It was good for business, but…the chains are taking over now. I don't expect this place will last much more than another year or so." He stopped talking and leaned forward to flip the hamburgers with a deft motion, then leaned back against the bar and resumed talking.

"Why, I remember this one young couple that came through quite regular back fifteen, twenty years ago. Big rough looking young man, pale skin, black hair, always had this cute little dark haired girl hanging on his arm like she'd found a new toy. Exotic looking; she seemed like she might have been Italian, or Greek, maybe. One of those places in the Mediterranean, anyway. Not more than a couple inches over five feet tall, and him approaching six foot."

Negi narrowed his eyes as he listened to the old man ramble on. He sensed that Takahata and Shizuna-sensei were listening as well.

"That bunch did a lot of good for this place, spreading the word down in San Diego and Los Angeles and those towns up north. Business was booming for a while. Then that motorcycle gang moved in and everything went straight to hell," the man suddenly spat. "'Course, that weren't good for business. Nobody wants a cheeseburger if they might end up paying fifty dollars for it in the parking lot." The old man gave the fry basket a good shake and began pouring drinks. Negi waited for a moment to see if he would continue, and glanced at Max when he did not. He frowned in puzzlement at the odd, almost sly look on Max's face, and the looks Max and Byron shot each other when the other man finally came out of the bathroom.

"They cleaned up the place," the old man suddenly said, after Byron made himself comfortable on the other side of Negi. "Kicked the gang out, beat 'em up, and sent 'em packin. The victory photo's over there," the man said, pointing over his back to a large board, full of pictures. A large one was featured prominently, and showed the same set of faces as the others. Negi couldn't help but grin at Max's black eye in the picture, and turned around to see the old man eyeing Max and Byron knowingly. "Ain't seen either one of you in at least ten years," he said.

Max shrugged, grinning crookedly, while Byron smirked.

"How've you been, Dave?" Max asked. "I thought for a moment you didn't recognize me."

"How could I ever forget that ugly mug? Anyway, I'm the same as ever. Something must've happened to you, though. Where's that girl? Rikki, wasn't it?"

"Yeah…she died, a long time ago," Byron supplied.

The old man grunted and turned his attention back to the food for a moment. "Damn shame," he said, putting plates in front of everyone. "She was a beauty. Well…that's life I guess." He segued into another story, and Negi listened with rapt interest to the exploits of his fellow teacher in his younger days.

Later, as everyone piled into the car and drove away, he couldn't help but notice the small smile that had replaced the frown Max had worn ever since they arrived in San Diego. Negi had watched that frown grow for four or five years now; it was about time it disappeared.

* * *

It was almost sundown by the time they finally arrived at their destination. Max got out of the SUV in silence, a carefully neutral expression on his face as he stretched a bit to relieve the stiffness acquired from riding in the car for hours; then he started walking up the rocky hillside, backlit by the beginnings of a colorful sunset. Negi moved to follow, but Byron held out a hand.

"Let him be."

* * *

Max stuffed his hands in his pockets as he trudged up the hill, mentally counting off the familiar rocks, fenceposts, and other bits of miscellany that he recalled from his many visits here. Rikki had always insisted on stopping here every time they passed by; and, as far as Max knew, it had been her favorite spot in the world. The two of them had spent a lot of time here; watching the sunset, eating cold food from the deli in town, just lying there in the grass in the sun. Others had joined them from time to time, but as far as the two of them were concerned, this place was theirs alone. Not so, now. He could see housing developments off to the south, and construction on what was probably an upscale subdivision to the north.

He finally reached the top of the upthrust of rock that marked the highest point of the cliffside and stood there a moment, looking out at the setting sun reflected on the Pacific. It was a view he knew intimately; he had seen it often enough, after all. He rooted around in his pocket for a moment and drew out two objects. He gave the dead pactio cards a fond look as he recalled everything the two of them had been through together.

"Hey, Rikki. I think…"

Images flashed through his head. Akira's smiling face, Jennifer, Yuuna and Makie and the others. Back to his first year at Mahora and the attacks on the school, running away with Akira in a misguided attempt to keep her safe. Back, before that to his days in the American Division. The meaningless days after Rikki's death that seemed to stretch forever, but actually lasted a mere two years. His first awkward meeting with Jennifer when she was transferred over from Ariadne in the magic world. Their first disastrous mission, following a false lead in an attempt to find a supposedly magical idol, and their later, more successful ones as they grew closer and got to know each other. Jennifer telling Guy off whenever he got too angsty, rolling her eyes when he made a bad joke, the horrible spaghetti she thought she could make...

Their pactio.

And…he couldn't help but grin. Jennifer, Akira, the girls at Mahora, the eleven girls he had been forced to pactio with during the various incidents in his four years there. It was something he wouldn't give up for the world. He reached into a pocket with his other hand and took out the stack of cards, wrapped double with rubber bands. He held it out in one hand, holding the two dead cards in the other, weighing them against each other.

He grinned ruefully as he made up his mind. "Sorry about this, but it's one or the other." He put the contents of one hand back into his pocket and shook his head. He took a few steps back, enough for a running start, and took a deep breath. Now or never.

He ran forward, and threw the two dead cards into the sky.

He watched silently as they first cut, and then fluttered through the air, down to the sea far below, where they vanished into the water.

He stood up straight, and for the first time in a long time, actually felt…good. It was refreshing, and he smiled without really knowing why. "I guess I'll see you later, Rikki…goodbye."

And with that, he turned around and strolled back down to the waiting car.

* * *

A ghostly being stood on the upthrust of rock, watching the car disappear into the evening. She smiled, a bit sadly, and turned to take one last look at the sunset. Already immaterial, her form shimmered as she looked down to the sea, where he had thrown the two dead cards. She looked once more in the direction the car had taken and sent her well wishes with it, to help those within in whatever path they might choose. It was time to for her to move on.

_Goodbye, Max._

She floated down to the cards as they were tossed by the surf, took her own in her hand, and she was gone.


End file.
